Tuesday, November 26, 2002

Domino Artwork creates portrait mosaics from dominoes. What makes their work particularly challenging is that they always use complete sets, utilizing a mathematical technique called "integer programming" to help them determine how to optimally position the dominoes. (Via Boing Boing.)

Afterlife Telegrams: "For a fee of $10 per word (5 word minimum), our customers can have a telegram delivered to someone who has passed away. This is done with the help of terminally ill volunteers who memorize the telegrams before passing away, and then deliver the telegrams after they have passed away." Diana observed that one flaw with this method is that it assumes that everyone's all going to the same place, a point that the company acknowledges in their FAQ. (Via Metafilter.)

"Mark Allen, a gay man living in New York, conducted an online relationship with a man living in Austin, Texas. But as the relationship matured, Allen realized it wasn't his cyberboyfriend he was falling in love with, it was his PowerMac G3."

Monday, November 18, 2002

Casinos like to use mechanical card shufflers to speed up game play. But according to Stanford mathematicians Persi Diaconis and Susan Holmes, these machines are not very good at randomizing the cards.

Boston College researchers have created a new high density optical storage medium by combining "epoxy glue sold at hardware stores and a glass-like substance". This new material is very stable and can store 19 times more data than a DVD. (Via Ars Technica.)

Wednesday, November 13, 2002

Mirror matter?: "Two Australian scientists believe they have found evidence of a parallel universe of strange matter within our own Solar System." This "mirror matter" is different from anti-matter and "weirder".

There are not enough real military buglers to play "Taps" at veterans' funerals. And many military families didn't like their loved ones buried to the sound of a CD. The Pentagon's solution? "[A] real bugle with a computerized insert. Now, a soldier only needs to push a button, wait five seconds and pretend to play." Apparently, very few people can tell the difference between the simulated playing and the real thing.

Monday, November 11, 2002

Two customers at the Alaska Experience Theater were sitting through the earthquake simulation tour when a real 7.9 magnitude earthquake hit. They merely thought it was part of an exceptionally realistic simulation. According to the article, "Even afterward, as they viewed displays in an adjoining gallery and aftershocks made the ground shake again, the Wortleys didn't catch on. Susan Wortley thought her wobbly legs were a residual effect of the simulator - something like a seaman getting his land legs back. 'We thought, 'This was really good.'"

The Colossal Colon is coming to a city near you: "As part of March's National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month 2003, the Cancer Research Foundation of America will lead a nationwide, 20-city Colossal Colon Tour from March 2003 to October 2003... The Colossal Colon is a 40-foot long, four-foot high replica of a human colon. Visitors who crawl through the colon, or look through the viewing windows, will see healthy colon tissue, colon disease, polyps and various stages of colon cancer." (Via Metafilter.)

A nice photograph of the "green flash". When I used to live in a beachside apartment in La Jolla, California, I was lucky enough to see it three times in a two year period. There's even a seafood restaurant on the San Diego waterfront called the "Green Flash" where customers can regularly see this phenomenon.

Sunday, November 10, 2002

Saturday, November 09, 2002

Nanotech version of Tetris: "A real-life implementation of the evergreen arcade game Tetris was obtained by optically trapping 42 glass microspheres (1 ìm diameter) in a 25 ìm x 20 ìm sized field under a microscope. Their positions are then steered with a computer. The generation of multiple traps, as well as the computer-steering, is accomplished by the use of acousto-optic deflectors: devices that tune the deflection of a laser beam that have very fast response. This page contains real-time videos and images of a micro-Tetris game, played live from the computer keyboard." (Via Boing Boing.)

"UC Irvine physicist Gregory Benford will announce plans for the first known attempt to push a spacecraft into the Earth's orbit with energy beamed up from the ground." More information on similar projects is available here.

Wednesday, November 06, 2002

A real-life "superhero" going by the name Terrifica has been patrolling the streets of NYC saving young women from would-be seducers. From the article, "'I protect the single girl living in the big city,' says Terrifica, sporting blond Brunhild wig with a golden mask and a matching Valkyrie bra. 'I do this because women are weak. They are easily manipulated, and they need to be protected from themselves and most certainly from men and their ill intentions toward them.'" She even has an arch-nemesis, a man named "Fantastico" who likes to dress in velvet. According to Fantastico, "over the years, Terrifica has thwarted his attempts on numerous occasions to get to know women a little better." (Via Boing Boing.)

Tuesday, November 05, 2002

Who has the biggest collection of spam? Why, the FTC (Federal Trade Commission), of course. The FTC has been requesting that annoyed spam recipients send them copies for several years now, so their current spam data base contains over 20 million entries and is considered the most extensive in the world.

Chameleon Tanks: The US Army is developing a "smart tank" with a nanotechnology-based coating that will allow it to detect and heal surface damage. Plus the coating will be able to "turn chameleon, creating instant camouflage and making themselves virtually invisible on the battlefield."

Net Vegas: The proliferation of computing power in Las Vegas casinos has led to an incredible economic boom as customers flock to the gaming tables. But it has also meant an explosive growth in high-tech cheaters and high-tech countermeasures.